Filling materials are typically lower cost components that are used to provide bulk to various types of components and/or enhance or extend function of one or more other components in a product. For example, paints typically include a pigment composition to achieve the desired color and hiding power of the paint. Many interior and exterior paints include hiding white-pigments. Other tints and colors can be mixed with the white pigments to obtain various colored paints. The pigments used in the paint can include inorganic and organic pigments, pigment lakes, insoluble dyes and other durable coloring matter. While the pigmentation of the paint can be solely from prime pigments, it is economically impractical to use solely prime pigments at the indicated high pigment volume concentration. As such, it is common that the pigment in the paint includes a hiding prime pigment and a pigment extender. The relative proportions of the prime white pigment and the pigment extender in the pigment mixture may be varied widely, but usually the hiding prime pigment is present at a pigment volume concentration which provides the desired paint covering power or hiding and the extender pigment is present in an amount which provides the paint with the desired total pigment volume concentration.
Common pigment extenders that are used in paints include calcium carbonate, talc, barytes, magnesium silicates, aluminum silicates, diatomaceous earth, china clay, asbestine, silica and mica. The need for improved extenders and/or fillers for products continues to exist. The present invention is directed to a material and a method and a manufacturing process for making such material that can be used as a filler in a variety of products and/or as a pigment extender in paints, coatings, stains, varnishes, primer, lacquers, sealants, caulks, etc.